Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, the author's last foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in animal form; where the air are populated with witches and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are caught and drinks is sipped, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the church's High Council, and is set on using his fresh power to extend the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to learn more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from the region. The substance is seen by various factions as a commercial good, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are shown to be deeply linked with the fate of the world. Her private quest to reconnect with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the central conflict in a larger war with an oppressive government which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thinking, originality and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the finding of a series of unusual fissures in the structure of the planet's air: gateways that appear to open into other worlds. A particular opening seems to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its head, designates these portals as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and back to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously essential – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean conflict between innocence and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
